Flicker Flicker
by Sterling Lee
Summary: A longing to escape the confines of the modern world sends England on a dizzy stumble down memory lane...history's a heavy thing to hold on to, but someone must remember.


_Author's Note: _...Come watch me beat symbolism to death. This story is a mishmash of mythology, history, and something that smells like religion, all condensed into a hallucinatory little dish and garnished with more adjectives then are really necessary. This story may confuse you if you came looking for a plot, and not what are essentially a set of loosely connected ramblings. It's sort of an experimental thing, and was spawned by my personal interpretation of England as a spacey guy who's got a tenuous relationship with reality. The story plays with the idea that he is capable of revisiting episodes of his past life, and is in the most literal sense "not all here". Magic's a tricky thing, and, combined with the memories of a being as old as England, it can produce some weird effects.

* * *

"_The woods of Arcady are dead,_

_And over is their antique joy;_

_Of old the world on dreaming fed;_

_Grey truth is now her painted toy…"_

-from _The Song of the Happy Shepherd_ by W. B Yeats

* * *

I.

England sits crossed-legged on the greensward of one of London's public gardens, humming aimlessly and a little out of tune as he plaits ribbons into the mane of a unicorn. He feels he is an old, old man these days. The sun is maybe probably shining on the other side of a pea-soup fog; he is caught along with his city in the drowsy indolence it brings.

Lyra whickers, noses his leg, leaving his olive drabs with a grassy stain. Smiling, he taps her bent knee in command. She stands with a smooth unfolding of limbs, the eager mouths of the breeze snatching at her mane and tail. England pats her neck, murmuring into her ears. Lyra is an old friend. She has aged with him, watching as the great Wood of old receded from his lands, making way for an onslaught of industry and human development. Nowhere now remains a true and virgin tract of the Wood to swallow men up in its secretive ways. However, he and Lyra alone can still walk that Wood if they choose. His land remembers what it once was, and at the slightest prompting it will welcome them back.

He is aware of a sound from behind him, but does not bother to turn at the footsteps that punish the new grass, nor to the buzz of lively energy and fast-food scent that are the presence of America. Lyra stamps a hoof, impatient to be gone. England swings up onto her back, the younger nation already fading into the dull backdrop of the park. His tiredness has lifted somewhat with the thought of leaving here, if only for a little while.

Lyra breaks into a canter, carrying them swiftly over the lawn as their surroundings begin to melt and flow like a watercolor. The park and gloomy sky swirl and bleed away into his periphery, taken over by a vision of a place flush with green and growing things. America's voice and the sounds of cars have gone. There is only the Wood.

* * *

II.

Lyra slows and halts beneath the canopy of a sun-spangled glade. England slides off, stumbling like a child in the leaf litter, steeped in drowsy memory. This is a home of his. This vast and trackless Wood, looking like a Rackham sketch, all around him full with a sound like the joyful surging of the sea.

He wanders slowly to the edge of the glade, bending to admire the small airy blossoms peeking from the earth and the fungi on tree trunks. As he reaches a hand out to part the screen of brambles, a long thorn snags his index finger and slits it from pad to knuckle. Absently, he thrusts it in his mouth, the familiar taste of blood on his tongue. Still with a hand to his mouth, England presses forward out of the clearing, coming suddenly upon the chill mist wreathing round the shores of a lake.

He stops for a moment to breathe in the still fog, droplets beading on his skin. The setting is more familiar now than ever. England knows the story of this place; he watched it unfold like a play, all the king's horses and all the king's men acting out their parts over the stage of the island chain in a drama of sorcery and magic swords.

Moving like a sleepwalker to the water's edge, he listens as it tugs at the toes of his boots. He peers into the shroud like rainspun cotton, unable to see more than an arm's length ahead. Still England keeps walking, feet finding the high ground as the lake rises, creeping up his knees and torso like a spreading stain. He is not afraid; he knows the water's depth and where the lakebed will rise and fall.

After a time he is soaked up to the neck, the lake sending wavelets up and over his nose and mouth. He has come to the center of the lake. Placing a hand on the boulder that rears from the water before him, he hoists himself up in a cascade of silver droplets. Up onto the stone whose head is wrapped in mist.

One the summit of the great boulder, the sword seems to stare him in the eye, its very presence a challenge. Writings from antiquity name it as the property of a long-lost king, but who is England if not a king of these lands? His claim to the sword is as true as that of the man named Arthur Pendragon, for these islands are his home, and the fabled king could be seen as, like all his people, another facet of himself.

He has read the words etched into the blade, and, ignoring them, turns to the place where it plunges into the stone with nary a fault. Reaching out slowly in the mist, he curls his fingers round the ornate hilt, feels the weapon start in recognition in his grasp. Blood oozes from his cut finger, winding down his wrist to trace a path across the cold blade. England tightens his grip, bends his head, and draws sword from stone with the practiced ease of a veteran soldier. It comes gladly, brightly to his hand; it knows its master. Sunlight flickers off the steel and dazzles him for an instant, and when his vision clears the tranquil lake is gone.

* * *

III.

In its place is a brooding forest, where shadowed paths wind away among the bent and twisted trees. He realizes suddenly that a restless bay shifts its weight beneath him. England does not pause to wonder how he came here- he has long since become used to the ways his history, memory, and magic intertwine to lead his unfocused self astray. He takes the transitions in stride; for him, all time has become the present.

His senses tell him there is a hunt afoot; his mount strains eagerly at the bit as his hand goes automatically to his side. A sword hangs there and he draws it, holding it to the dim light that filters in among the trees. He turns it over- it is a vorpal blade, full of greed and gleaming cruelly. His mount prances on the spot and he smiles hungrily as he gives the horse its head. It is a long time since he rode out on the hunt.

The vorpal blade mirrors a darkling rush of gnarled trees and flickers of gray sky as they plunge into the forest. Thorns whip at his legs, strange shapes bound away from the path, keening cries echo from the depths of the forest as the bay's hooves beat a quick rhythm on the earth. This woods teems with beasts, but he shuns them all, on the trail of the most fearsome of the lot.

Soon they slow the headlong dash, trotting cautiously through the spectral forest. The soft sounds of two warm breathing animals are the only ones to break the silence. They continue so until they reach the clearing.

England hefts the vorpal blade, breathing in the fertile scent of bruised plants and upturned earth, mingled with the foul reek of his prey. It is a smell like a city struck by plague it summer. At the center of the ravaged clearing is the beast. His mount halts now, showing the whites of its eyes with a protesting snort.

A shift in the saddle, he raises his blade. The beast's snaky neck whips toward him, eyes alive with a smolder of too-bright flame as it lurches forward. England's mount, all bravado gone, cries a high terrified whinny, cantering in skewed circles round the beast's great clawed feet. Long ropes of saliva burn the grass black, the snap of leathery wings fills the air. England's grip on the vorpal blade is sweaty, shaking in the sudden rush of adrenaline.

Tossing its gruesome head, the beast readies itself to charge once more; England's horse prances lightly on spindle legs. Its maw gapes wide, hot breath roiling greasily over his bare skin. From here he can feel the malice and unbearable hunger that gnaw at his adversary, fell and relentless. It a flash of movement, it lunges.

England grips the carven sword-hilt in two hands; the vorpal blade sings a noise like _snicker-snack_, and a steaming gout of blood drowns his weakened arms, soaking his uniform in vitriol and reeking gore. He is vaguely aware of his own screams mingling with those of his foundering mount; both are drenched and suffocated beneath the burning stink.

The panicked bay rears high and throws him, blade flying from his hand as the clearing vibrates with the convulsions of the dying beast. He tastes soil, hearing the thunder of his horse's flight as he rolls facedown onto the forest floor and lies still.

* * *

IV.

England rolls over, the bending trees no longer painting a gray-brown patchwork overhead. The blood has vanished but still he is burned, red welts streaking his face and arms. The rich loam and trampled leaf litter beneath him has given way to cropped grass, dried in the height of summer's heat. Sitting up slowly, feeling uncommonly crippled with age, he turns to the east.

There stands proud Canterbury Cathedral, serene and grand. Picking himself up off the lawn, England heads for the west portal.

He smiles tiredly at the way the smooth dark doors spring apart under his touch, granting him entry into the cool womb of the nave. He has not visited a place of worship for many years; his footsteps reverberate in the dimness as he passes through the choir. The building is empty, and he relishes the solitude that fills it from the tiled floor to the vaults of the ceiling. Directly ahead lies the chapel.

England's weariness grows with each step, the aches and pains of centuries throbbing in his bones as he nears the apse of the cathedral. Finally his boots meet the foot of the stair, and he sinks to his knees in exhaustion. His legs fit easily into well-worn grooves in the stone, left there by countless pilgrims just as desperate as he for rest and reassurance.

A dapple of viridescent light spills from the nearest stained glass window, flickering across his face as he raises his wounded hands to the ceiling. It is a gesture of invitation, of supplication, for any watching eyes to look down on him with mercy. Surrounded by brilliant glass and solemn effigies, he closes his eyes.

* * *

V.

Arthur Kirkland blinks hard in the bright sunlight, arms outstretched like the spreading boughs of the oak above him. _Jump_, he says to the boy who clings like a monkey to the twisted trunk. _Jump, I'll catch you. _

The boy stares mutely to earth, fear in his ocean eyes. _Come, Alfred. Jump. You don't need to be afraid. I'm here._ And for today, for this moment, he is here, has not left his brother behind to make the leap for himself.

Biting his lip, Alfred nods, steadies, himself, and drops heavily into Arthur's waiting arms. The impact knocks them to the ground, sends them tumbling over in the grass as Alfred clings to his shirt and laughs and laughs. Arthur wipes away the tears that roll down his small perfect face. He is laughing too, in this sunlit meadow for a time merely Arthur Kirkland, no great empire but a single, smiling man.

Rolling onto his back, he hoists Alfred far above him into the sky; he is so brilliant outlined against the sun like that. The boy spreads his arms like wings and flaps them in the tickle of breeze that touches both their faces.

They fly together for a while, with mountains and valleys and deserts all far, far below them. There are people on the ground, who point to the sky and smile and wave, and they wave back. From up here Arthur sees how vast Alfred's land truly is, and he watches enthralled as sundark men on spotted ponies speed across the soft prairie sea and flocks of gulls break from barren thrusts of rock to fly out over the ocean.

There comes a time, however, when they must return to earth, and Arthur sets Alfred down in the grass and stands, already beginning to feel a tiredness seeping into his bones. The boy drops his gaze, knowing no plea will keep his brother on this side of the Atlantic once a thousand other swarming obligations conspire to draw him away. Squashing a flicker of remorse, Arthur turns to go. In minutes his brisk stride has carried him up and over the rise and out of sight, and Alfred sits down alone in the shadow of the oak.

* * *

VI.

England has walked for many years now, it seems, away from the storybook place where he broke Alfred's fall and they laughed together under the canopy of an old oak tree. Long prairie grasses lap at his knees as he slogs onward.

After a long while he stops, face-to-face with a startlingly beautiful young man, looking majestic and ethereal and a little bit like France. This is one of the firstborn among the islands, a lord of the fairy folk that raise their mounds far and wide across his land. A chain of daisies rests in his flaxen hair, and he hums a sprightly tune that carries the sound of running water.

"You've been a long way off," the man tips his head, an odd smile lingering on his wide lips. "We've missed ye. They say you're hurting."

"Hurting and being hurt," England deliberately turns the words in their opposite directions. "Not all of us can be children forever."

"Forever young, eh? I'd drink to that," the man taps his foot, mimes drawing a bow over a phantom fiddle, "Care to join me? I know you've always been a lover of a tune and a drink or two."

A sad smile flickers across England's face and he shakes his head, feeling more tired that he has in many long years. "I know better than to drink with the likes of you, Angus Óg." He has no wish to go the way of so many heroes in story and song, who took the meat and drink of the fairy folk and became trapped in their land of eternal youth.

Angus smiles crookedly, beautifully. "Seems I never could capture ye, Arthur. Too caught up in your magic swords and dragon myths."

"It is history. Some of us must remember."

"Jus' glad it don't fall to me to do so," Angus stoops and plucks a daisy from the earth, smiling into its round eye. He tucks it behind England's ear, "Do come back, Arthur. A day will come when you'll want nothin' but to forget."

England nods wordlessly, looking up at the dimming sky. Angus raises a hand in farewell, his form already darkening with the oncoming evening. England turns on his heel and trudges away, raising his own hand as the rolling grassland fades off into the dusk.

* * *

VII.

The windblown field is gone and the flowers are deep down inside the ground; it is only him and war-torn London in the purpling light of evening. A haze of pain clouds his green eyes, and he lolls indolently in his chair. War has taken its toll on him, as it has done to all of Europe, and his body aches with the constant rain of fire Germany sends down on him each night.

He has been eating, he finds, a biscuit halfway to his mouth. He puts it down and opens the tin of kippers, admiring the oily puddle and gleam of its contents before listlessly setting it aside. The pixie at his elbow does an airborne somersault and alights on the upturned lid of the tin.

_"Hurts?" _she inquires solicitously, voice bursting like a tinkle of bells from her tiny lips. England pokes at the biscuit, mired in sluggish thought.

"Mmm. Yep." He flips the biscuit over and onto the floor, watching crumbs scatter across the dark wood.

Germany has made a wreckage of his city of light; he himself has been silenced and night is much closer on his heels that it once was. As darkness falls his refugees turn to douse their lamps. They pull black blinds over their windows and paint the headlights of their autos, then retreat into their deep dry bunkers. As England sits watching by the window, lights are winking out all across the city, flicker-flicker.

* * *

For anyone who's wondering:

-**Arthur Rackham** was an English artist who became famous for his depictions of fantasy creatures.

-**Angus Og** is the Celtic god of love and eternal youth.


End file.
